MathiasZaman comments on Does utilitarianism "require" extreme self sacrifice? If not why do people commonly say it does? - Less Wrong Discussion
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People generally don't manage that. People learn what they can and can't do in Ranger School.
This is another case where it just seems there are multiple species of homo sapiens. Or maybe I'm just a Martian.
When other people say "X is moral", they mean "I will say that 'X is moral', and will occasionally do X"?
I can almost make sense of it, if they're all just egoists, like me. My moral preferences are some of my many preferences. Sometimes I indulge my moral preferences, and sometimes my gustatory preferences. Moral is much like "yummy". Just because something is "yummy", it doesn't I plan on eating it all day, or that I plan to eat all day.
But that is simply not my experience on how the term "moral" is generally used. Moral seems to mean "that's my criteria to judge what I should and shouldn't do". That's how everyone talks, although never quite how everyone does. Has there been an egoist revolution, and I just never realized it?
I think people have expressed before being "The Occasional Utilitarian" (my term), devoting some time slices to a particular moral theory. And other times, not. "I'm a utilitarian, when the mood strikes me".
It reminds me of a talk I had with some gal years ago about here upcoming marriage. "Oh, we'll never get divorced, no way, no how, but if we do..." What's going through a person's head when they say things like that? It's just bizarre to me.
Years later, I was on a date at a sex show and bumped into her. She was divorced.
Knowing what is moral and acting on what is moral are two different things. Acting on what is moral is often hard, and people aren't known for their propensity to do hard things.
The divide between "I know what is moral" and "I act on what I know to be moral" exists in most moral theories with the possible exception (as far as I know, which isn't all that far) of egoism.